


The Madness of Monaco

by siriuslywinchester



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: F/M, Monaco 2015, Post Race
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4332972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslywinchester/pseuds/siriuslywinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the anonymous prompt I received on tumblr:</p><p>Following the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix, Toto is angry and stressed. No one will leave him alone, Lewis is demanding answers, Nico is bugging toto and Niki is wanting an investigation. He can't believe the team miscalculated the gap. Susie knows what hell he's going through and decides to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Madness of Monaco

**Author's Note:**

> sorry that this probably isn't really what you were after but the story kind of carried itself away from me and i kind of like how it turned out.

Toto sat at the head of the table, ready for the debrief to start. Normally he'd only ask the senior engineers and team members to attend, sitting them at a round table so that everyone's opinions were equal, but today's events called for a different approach.

The entire team were there - engineers, PR, HR, truck drivers - everyone except Niki, Lewis and Nico. Where the hell had they got to? 

He'd sat the team as though they were in a press conference, four chairs at a table at the front of the room for his drivers, the chairman and himself. Most of the team sat in silence, the tension filling the room. Everybody was trying to avoid Toto's gaze as he rubbed his hands through his hair, wondering whether Lewis would turn up and how he would react out of the eyes of the media.

Nico walked into the room first, a huge grin on his face and the track-shaped trophy tucked under his arm,

"Great work, boys," he joked, pointing across at Lewis' race engineer before realising that the debrief room looked a little stranger than normal, "What's going on?"

Toto patted the sit beside him.

"Sit here Nico," he said, "We need to talk as a whole team to get to the bottom of what happened today."

"There is no bottom," Nico said, strutting across the room and placing the trophy in the middle of the table, "I won, Lewis made a mess of his race. Ta-dah."

Nico dropped into the seat beside Toto and grinned as he pointed at the trophy again. Toto sighed, running his hand through his hair again. He'd asked Nico into the meeting thinking that he would be a little more diplomatic and help Lewis come round to the fact it was an honest mistake, but he had a feeling that the German's presence might be another mistake to add to the list.

Toto was contemplating whether it was best to ask Nico to leave when Niki entered the room. The look on his face said everything - he wanted answers. Now. And no excuses.

"Where's Lewis?" he asked, marching to the front of the room and ignoring the shrugs from team members who knew they were about to be shouted at, "Which asshole is to blame for what happened?"

"I think we should wait for Lewis to arrive," Toto suggested, hoping to pull back the Austrian's onslaught for a few more minutes, "His input will be valuable."

"I want an investigation," Niki continued, ignoring Toto's point, "I want it done quickly and I want to know exactly what went wrong. It cannot happen again. We looked like amateurs out there today. We failed Lewis."

Nico pulled a mock-hurt face and picked up his trophy, waggling it in Niki's face.

"We still won the race," Nico laughed, getting a stern look from Toto.

"Yes. And you should have come second. Behind Lewis," Niki said abruptly, "If it wasn't for this fuck up."

The members of the team sitting in the chairs facing Toto and Niki began to squirm, eyeing on another anxiously and wondering whether they'd be on the chopping block once Niki's investigation had taken place.

Toto sensed that Niki was about to make another point but the door swung open again and Lewis entered the room. He glanced around and walked silently up to the table, forlornly taking the remaining seat and glancing at Toto before placing his head in his hands.

The whole room fell silent and Toto's breath caught in his throat as he felt the pain that was emanating from the Brit. It almost choked Toto and he had no idea how Lewis was seemingly so relaxed. The hurt in the English drivers eyes was almost screaming at him, un-shed tears making them glisten, but when he finally looked up, his face was a mask of calm.

"OK," he said quietly, turning to face Toto, "What happened?"

\-----

The meeting ran late into the night. Engineers squabbled over what could have gone wrong. The strategist insisted that the data he had proved that Lewis should have been able to pit and win. Niki shouted and insisted for a proper investigation and Lewis sat quietly, listening and not passing comment.

Nico had excused himself halfway through the meeting, growing bored of the debate and wanting to celebrate his win. He clutched his trophy in his hands and left the room quickly. Toto envied him, he was probably halfway through a bottle of wine, relaxing somewhere comfortable with his wife without a care in the world.

"Look, it's late," he said finally, "We should call it a night. Get some rest and speak about this again tomorrow. We'll investigate, as Niki suggests, and for now agree that it was a huge mistake. One that we can't rectify except by never letting it happen again."

The team fell silent. Even Niki was silent. Everybody was tired. 

Lewis nodded, pushing himself to his feet and saying a short, quiet goodbye before leaving the room and disappearing into the night. Toto nodded to the rest of the team who took that as their signal to leave and eventually he was left alone in the room.

He sighed heavily and forced himself to his feet. Looking at his watch, by the time he got back to the hotel he'd have a few hours rest before he needed to be up and preparing for the media onslaught.

He wasn't sure how he was going to force himself to sleep.

\-----

Back at the hotel, he quietly slid the key card into the door and sneaked into the room. The main lights were off, but the light beside the bed was still on. Susie was fast asleep, the book she'd been reading still clutched in her hand.

Toto watched her for a moment, feeling sad that she'd fallen asleep waiting for him, but peaceful just watching her chest raise and fall as she breathed.

He slipped into the bathroom and was immediately hit by a fragrant aroma. It tickled his nose and he had to force himself not to sneeze. He recognized it as the scent of the candles Susie used when she'd had a stressful day and went to relax in the bath.

When Toto turned the light on, he noticed that the bath was full - a few bubbles remaining from what had probably once been a foaming mass. There were candles, snubbed out by their own wax, placed around the edge of the bath and a glass of whiskey in the hollow where the soap should have been.

He smiled to himself, breathing in the scent and reaching for the class of whiskey. He dipped his fingers into the water and found it was cold.

A part of him was tempted to just climb in regardless, but instead he pulled the plug and drop the lid over the toilet to sat there, watching as the water swirled and gurgled as it escaped from the tub.

His mind cast back to their wedding night, spent in a hotel not much different from the one they were in now. They'd filled the bath then and both climbed in, washing every inch of each others bodies and splashing water across the floor as they explored one another for the first time as man and wife.

Toto poured the whiskey into his mouth, letting it burn as it ran down his throat and heated his insides. He knew that Susie had prepared this for him, expecting him to be home earlier and need some sort of relaxation. He was sad that he'd missed it, but he felt much better, knowing that his wife cared so much even after several years together. 

He removed his clothes, washing his face and brushing his teeth as he thought back to all the times Susie had made him smile or calmed him down after a rough day at work. A simple cooked meal when he was late home and starving, a surprise visit by his family when he'd had to miss his mother's birthday because of a race weekend, the ice cream machine which Susie had enjoyed more than him, but had made him laugh when it got blocked and proceeded to explode across the kitchen.

Toto switched the bathroom light off and tip toed to the edge of the bed, turning the bedside light off before sliding between the sheets.

Susie rolled over, the book falling to the ground, and snuggled her warm body into her husband. She was still sleeping but Toto was glad that she had sensed him. He wrapped his arm around his wife as she rested her head on his chest and sighed peacefully.

He fell asleep a lot easier than he'd earlier thought he would have.


End file.
